Week 2 (History of Anthropology)

Question 1

History of Anthropology

Answer 1

Trace back of origin to Herodotus (5th century BCE), Marco Polo (13th – 14th
century) and Ibn Khaldun (14th century).
* Reports on different cultures.

Christian Missionaries
* Detail reports on cultures they encountered.

Charles Darwin Influenced early anthropologists.
* Biological evolution.
* Survival of the fittest.

Question 2

History of
Anthropology II

Answer 2

Sir Edward Tylor and Sir. James Frazer.
* Model of cultural evolution
* Lower (Bands) to higher forms of government (State).
* Non westernized cultures called “primitives”.

Question 3

History of
Anthropology III

Answer 3

Birth of Functionalism.

Cultural Anthropology exploded after WWII
* Hundreds of Anthropology departments in Colleges or Universities established.
* Employed by the State or Governments.

The culture function like the human body
* Age, religion, taboos etc all have function to maintain cohesion.
* Looking at how culture maintains cohesion despite consistent renewal.
* No interested in Agency or internal struggles.

Question 4

History of
Anthropology IV

Answer 4

Radcliffe-Brown & Malinowski
* Extended Functional-structuralism.
* Human Organizations/cultures develops to meet physical and psychological need.
* Malinowski and the role of fishing
* Magic used to create a security from an uncertain situation.

Julian Steward
* How different nation state develop differently.
* Adapt to their environment.
* Cultures close to the shore will develop differently than one close to mountain range or
praire.

Question 5

History of
Anthropology V

Answer 5

• French structuralism and Interpretive Anthropology (1950s to 1960).

Claude Levi Strauss
* Symbols teach us more about cultures.
* Myths and stories

Symbolic Anthropology
* Cultures are a system of meanings.

Interpretive Anthropology.
* Seeks to understand what people think about
* People’s ideas and the meaning that are important to them.

Question 6

History of
Anthropology VI

Answer 6

Rise of Marxism.

Karl Marx
* Historical materialism.
* Dialectics.

Resisting the idea that culture is just symbolic.

Cultural materialism.
* Emphasize on material, aspect of life.
* People’s environment.
* Inequality of wealth and power.

Question 7

History of
Anthropology VII

Answer 7

Rise of Post-modernism.

Born out of the resistance of Marxism and Structural Functionalism.

Rejected Marx’s overreaching theory.
* Allow people themselves to interpret their own situation.

Reject Objectivity and open for reflexivity.
* Work closely with people.
* Cannot be objective.
* Have to think about our own position.

Question 8

History of
Anthropology VIII

Answer 8

Two main theories.

Structurism
* Structural determinism.
* People have no control of their action.
* Structures (Economy, religion, media) shape cultures
* Behavior.
* People do not recognize how the structure shape them.

Agency
* People hold agency in changing the structure.

Question 9

History of
Anthropology IX

Answer 9

Feminism.

Rose out of Marxism.

Look at the inequality between genders.
* Naturalization of gender roles.
* Power and domination.

Highlights People’s different lives experience.
* People’s lives are more complicated.
* People hold more than one social roles/position.
* People status can create advantage in one social context but disadvantage in another context.

Question 10

Three Debates on Difference

Answer 10

Three main debates on understanding people’s difference.

1. Biological determinism vs. Cultural constructionism.
2. Interpretive Anthropology vs. Cultural Materialism.
3. Structure vs. Agency.

Question 11

Biological determinism vs.
Cultural constructionism

Answer 11

Biological determinism argues people’s behavior is determined by biological factors.
* Genes.
* hormones

Biological reasons men have “better” spatial skills.
* Spatial skill improved by evolution.

Cultural constructionism.
* People’s behavior explained by cultural factors.
* Behaviour passed down culturally.
* Boys socialized differently than girls.

Question 12

Interpretive Anthropology
vs. Cultural Materialism

Answer 12

Interpretive Anthropology.
* Study of what people think about, their explanation of their lives and symbols that are important to them.
* Dietary habits of Hindus.
- Cow sacredness.
- Sin to kill and eat cow.

Cultural Materialism.
* Material aspect of live shape cultures
* Three level model.
* Infrastructure shape both the structure (Social organization, kinship) and superstructure (Ideas Values and
beliefs)

Question 13

Interpretive Anthropology
vs. Cultural Materialism.

Answer 13

Cultural materialist explanation of sacredness of the cow.
* Melvin Harris.
* Serve an important role.
* Eat paper trash and other edible refuse,
* Excrement turned into fertilizer, cooking fuel.
* Plow fields.
* Acknowledge the sacredness

Question 14

Structurism vs.
Agency

Answer 14

Agency focus on people’s ability to change their situation.
* Make choices.
* Exercise free will.

Structurist
* Free choice is an illusion.
* Larger forces shape people’s action.

Agency and structure complimentary.
* Need agency but also a structure.
* People can exercise free will within structure to make changes.

Question 15

Cultural relativism

Answer 15

One of the philosophic pillars of anthropology

Franz Boas
* Work with Inuits.
* Realized that different cultures have different perceptions of the same substance, such as
water or snow.

Accept all cultures have own sets of meanings.

Sympathetic understanding of the cultural difference.
* Understand people’s behavior and actions.
* Refrain from judging.

Question 16

Cultural relativism II

Answer 16

Pushback against ethnocentrism.
* The idea that your culture is the norm.
* Judge other cultures by your own standard.

Not to be confused with ethical relativism.
* Not “everything goes” stance

Question 17

Downside of Cultural
Relativism.

Answer 17

Apply cultural relativism uncritically
* The holocaust
* No one to question particular value

Question 18

The Armchair
Anthropologist

Answer 18

In the infancy of Anthropology, fieldwork was applied rarely.

Reports written based on secondary data.
* Missionaries, travelers and explorers’ journals.
* Never visit the place they wrote about.
* No direct experience.

Question 19

The Verandah Anthropologists

Answer 19

Moved from the armchair to the porch.
* Hired by colonial governments.
* Went to the field but interview “locals” in the porch.

Lewis Henry Lewis
* Direct observation
* Short insight into people’s lives.
* Iroquois.

Question 20

Navigating the Field II

Answer 20

Culture shock.
* Uneasiness, anxiety that occurs when shifting to a new
culture.
* Impact one’s ability to navigate culture

Reverse culture shock.
* Re-think one’s native culture.

Question 20

Participant Observation

Answer 20

Developed by Bronislaw Malinowski.

Learning about cultures by living with locals for extended
time while gathering data.

See the culture from the “native point of view”.
* Recorded songs, rituals, language.
* Isolated cultures.

Question 21

Participant
observation II

Answer 21

Today’s Participation Observation.

New methods to highlight interaction between local and
global connections.

Multi-sited research
* More than one location.
* Hair-styles among African American women (USA and
England)

Question 22

Process Before Fieldwork

Answer 22

Literature review.
* Gathering secondary data.
* Examine gaps in knowledge.

Possible Short cut
* Interview experts.
* Collaborative study.

The research can change once you get to the field.
* Weiner’s work in Trobriand Island.
* Cover women’s trading network.

Question 23

Preparing for Fieldwork

Answer 23

Secure funding.

Gain necessary visas (if travel internationally).

Start communicating with communities.
* Get community approval.

Go through ethics boards.
* Informed consent.
* NO deceptions.
* Not harming participants.

Question 24

Navigating the Field

Answer 24

Establish Rappaport within community.
* Complexed system.
* Whom to trust? (Gatekeepers)
* Gaining their trust as well.

How one represent itself.
* People might put label on the anthropologist

Gift giving.
* Complexed system.
* What is appropriated gift? Appropriated gift to receive?

Your social status matter.
* Influence who you can talk to.
* The access to certain informants.

Question 25

Collecting Data

Answer 25

Deductive vs. Inductive research.

Deductive approach/
* A research question/hypothesis.
* Observation/interviews etc.
* Produced Etic data = Data to test a hypothesis.
* Quantitative data = Numeric information.

Inductive approach.
* Without hypothesis
* Unstructured interviews, stories and myths.
* Emic data = Reflect on what insiders say or understand about their culture.
* Qualitative data = Nonnumeric information, records of conversation or filming events.

Question 26

Collecting Data II

Answer 26

Interview
* One on one.
* Group interview.

Questionnaire
* Unstructured or structured interviews.
* Rate one’s position.

Question 27

Collecting Data III

Answer 27

Life history
* In depth description of an indiidual’s life.
* Nisa: The life and Times of a !Kung Woman
* Difficult to find someone who represents an entire culture.

Time allocation study
* Collect data how people spent their time on particular activities.

Text
* Dissect texts.

Question 28

Collecting Data IV

Answer 28

Field notes
* Anthropologist’s journal.
* Records what one experience daily.

Audio recordings, photographs and videos.
* Transcribing recordings.
* A tedious process.

Question 29

Analyzing Data

Answer 29

Finding themes or patterns in your data.

Ethnography is the end product.
* What makes cultural anthropology special.
* Detailed description of living culture through observation.

Question 30

Issues in Fieldwork

Answer 30

Ethics.
* No longer condone covert research.
* Not working under government.
* Participation in the U.S. Human Terrain System (HTS)
* Employed by the military.
* Disclose sensitive political information.

Safety in the field.
* Physical and psychological danger (War zone anthropology).
* Female anthropologist in most danger (sexual harassment, abuse etc.)